Chocolate, hazelnuts, and a new tradition

Just as I feel I'm settling in Winnipeg, it arrives: the dreaded "Sign your life away for the next year, or get out of our apartment building" notice.  So, I'm about to uproot myself again and move within the city to something more affordable (and less lavish.  Does anyone truly NEED a pool, hot tub, gym, and car wash in their parkade?  Probably not).

Despite changes in living conditions, though, I'm laying down roots in other areas.  Specifically, I've started a new tradition (though I've alluded to it before).  I have become the official birthday cake baker for my lovely friends/coworkers.  Last week, I made an absolutely gorgeous (in my modest opinion!) chocolate hazelnut cake for my wonderful colleague Linda, with the help of my (now-famous) birthday cake quiz.  Here's the result!

This cake doesn't contain any flour.  It also contains a whole (400g) jar of Nutella.  How can you go wrong?!

As per Linda's quiz, I decided Skor would be a nice addition to this tasty treat.  There's one food-processed bar in the cake itself, and two more decorating the top.  Mmm!

Happy moment in my life: realizing I can get buttercream icing from a GIANT TUB at Bulk Barn :)  Makes a nice contrast for decoration with the Skor, hazelnuts, and chocolate ganache, no?

I don't often quote that 1970's rug-chested Englishman... but YEAH BABY!!

Deb in my office, holding the last piece on a very classy brown paper towel.  See how hard I work on Tuesday afternoons, handing out cake to all and sundry?

Overall I was EXTREMELY pleased with how the recipe turned out.  My coworker even asked me for the recipe to make for her own Hubs, since he loves Nutella.  I love getting ideas from other blogs and tweaking them slightly.  I suppose this is as good a time as any to formally thank my favourite curvy British food goddess Nigella Lawson, who originally published the recipe.  She may try to turn her recipes into some sort of strange erotic experience on her shows, but MAN that woman makes good food.

Thinking this was a good encore following my "Third Wheel" (PB, Nutella and banana) crèpe at Kawaii,
-Honeybee

B-day Cake Crazy

I love cake.  There's no getting around it.  There are only very few cakes I've met that I haven't liked, and it takes a very messed-up cake to garner my scorn (think: dry, tough, tasteless).

This cake was not scorn-worthy.

Given that I love baking cake almost as much as eating it, I offered to make a custom creation for my coworker Sherri's twentysomething birthday (I got your back, Sher... I won't spill the beans here!)  Sherri, like me, loves pretty much any cake, which gave me carte blanche for creation.  I sent her a little quiz, however, to see what flavours she prefers and what I could play around with.  I believe the quiz was as follows:

1. What's your favourite citrus flavour?  Answer: lemon
2. What's your favourite berry? Answer: raspberry
3. What's your favourite non-berry-or-citrus fruit?  Answer: peaches and mangoes (I think... I can't quite recall all answers now)
4. Favourite nut? Answer: not really a huge nut fan overall
5. Favourite chocolate type (i.e. dark, milk, white, etc)?  Answer: any!!
6. Favourite type of icing (i.e. buttercream, fondant, fluffy)?  Answer: cream cheese
7. Favourite cake flavour overall (i.e. red velvet, chocolate, white, spice)? Answer: carrot cake

Sherri had fun with the quiz, which I'm thinking I'll use for other upcoming 'Pegger birthday girls and boys.  Now, obviously, I wasn't about to make a cake that incorporated ALL of these flavours... that might be tricky (and gross).  Instead, I picked up on lemon and raspberry, partly because I'd been craving the combo myself, and partly because something light and fruity like that was a nice change from the cold wintry weather.

Recipe book, along with citrus inspiration!

As with most of my baking endeavors, my coworkers are my guinea pigs (or lab rats?  Whichever).  Having never attempted it before, I decided to make Anna Olson's Lemon Mousse Cake, modified with some raspberry jam in the middle layer.  The end product?  Gorgeous and delicious.  The journey to get there?  Perilous, at best.  I shall let the pictures do the talking.

There's a significant amount of lemon zest in this cake.  Couldn't help but take a shot of my  citrus, elevated to the level of art by my new zester (courtesy of my cousin Adam at Christmas).  I love the long, criss-crossed pattern it makes!  It also makes great long strips for garnishing... more on that later.

The genoise sponge cake, made to specs per Anna's recipe.  I've made genoise before- light and spongy without being dry.  This did not disappoint.  The idea was to trim about an inch all the way around the perimeter of the cake (which made tasty tidbits for snacking), then slice the cake into two layers.  Then, using a ring mould (or the ring from a springform pan, which you see here), pour a homemade lemon mousse over the whole shebang, surrounding the layers in light but firmly set airy "frosting" with a perfect clean edge.

Uhhhhhm... oops.  The best laid plans oft go awry.  I didn't thoroughly clean the beaters on my electric mixer between whipping up the cream and the eggs, which resulted in less-than-inflated eggs and a runny mousse.  Add to that the ability of the mouse to leak under the ring mould that I'd set on top of the serving platter.  Crap.  What a mess....

Aaaand the floor.  I was so frantic (wanting to ensure I had enough time to make a second batch of mousse and let the whole thing set up), that I actually left this splatter in place for a good couple of hours.  Figgy did not object at all... though I'm sure my veterinarian sister Ni would faint over my kitties licking up heavy cream and raw egg.  Ah well, it's not like I'm going to REPEAT this performance.

Second (and successful) batch of mousse in place.  I made swirly patterns with dollops of PC blue menu raspberry jam, and a chopstick.  I was shocked at how nice the raspberries looked mid-January!

Part of the second-time-around solution: instead of just resting the springform ring around the cake on the serving platter, as Anna suggests, I actually put the cake back in the fully assembled pan.  The paper towels are there because of a known leak in one spot of this particular pan.  Luckily it stemmed the flow of mouse appropriately, and no further massive mousse messes were made that day.  Huzzah!

And now, Honeybee's destroyed kitchen!! No real worries, though... this was tidied up pretty quickly.  It just LOOKS bad.

AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH THE EFFORT.  Behold, the gorgeous, garnished finished product.

Look at those lovely lemon peel curls!  Plus a few mint leaves, for good measure.

At the fête, with the lovely Scarlett, Sher, Lindsay, and Honeybee.  Sher was quite pleased with the end product!!

Cross-section.  See the nice layer of raspberry jam in there?  Added a very nice touch, if I do say so myself.  My criticism of the overall end product?  I would've liked the recipe to make more mousse, to ensure a sufficient "top layer" at least equal to the thickness of the "side layer".  The next time I make this sucker, I'll be making 1.5 times the mousse.  Leftovers are better than not enough!!

Before I go, since I'm already on the topic of birthday cakes, I want to share MY 26th birthday cake with you.  I know I've written before about my Aunt Lisa's tradition of making me my very own cake, in spite of all the other goodies/dainties that are served on Christmas Eve.  I never know what I'm getting any given year, however it's a VERY safe bet to assume it'll be chocolatey as sin.  Drumroll please, for the 2010 cake:

Behold!  A chocolate caramel sea salt masterpiece!  And yes, the jig is up.  My name is Melissa.  Greek for Honeybee.  I couldn't bear the thought of blurring out that awesome icing job for the sake of anonymity.  And I love the little snowflake sprinkles... they match the beautiful pendant that Hubs got me for Christmas!

Not the most flattering of action shots, but that's life in motion for ya!  Blowing out the candles in my Nonna's dining room, surrounded by Ellie, Johnny Cash (I mean, my brother-in-law), Ni, Daniel, Sar, and Adam (the zester cousin!)  The taste of this cake was so worth all that effort to blow out those candles!  Plus check out all those other goodies... this is why I gained ten pounds over the holidays!  Ah well, you only live once.

I'm most definitely looking forward to future birthday cake requests.  I've already got three in mind:

• Irene has requested something with caramel (perhaps I'll ask Aunt Lisa for my cake's recipe? Or I'll play around with dulce de leche, we'll see).  Irene, if you happen to stumble across this, tell me again what your birthdate is so I can schedule my scheming!
• Shannon requested something super-chocolatey (I'm thinking my aptly-named Super Chocolatey Cake, but perhaps with a ganache frosting instead of Betty Crocker.  There's a reason my London girlfriends call this one "sex on a plate")
• Hubs was very intrigued by the Tia Maria torte I enjoyed last night at Baked Expectations with my new buddy Deb... and I'm just as intrigued about recreating it.  Challenge accepted!

As much as I love baking, I'll only put on more weight if I hoard the results to myself (no matter how tasty they are!)  I'm so looking forward to honing my skills and having the result be enjoyed by friends and family.  I'm also looking forward to spending more time in Bulk Barn... I've never fully appreciated what a haven that place is for cake decorators!

Thinking I need to look into a formal cake decoration class, perhaps in the fall after boards and wedding are safely behind me,
-Honeybee

A celebratory blast from the past

As promised at the end of my falafel post, I will regale you with a story about my friend Kimmi (and food, of course).  It's a tale of love, loss, disaster, and redemption, and centers around Kimmi's birthday in the summer of 2009.  That sounds quite dramatic, doesn't it?  Well, since Kim correctly answered a question following a food-disaster event, I thought I'd share a (near) disaster that was created in her honor.

Kimmi blowing out the candles.

First, let me tell you a bit about Kimmi.  We've been friends since a fateful coffee date back my in 3rd year of university.  I had met Tori through working in the deli at Valumart (again, food connection... I've been having deli nightmares lately, too).  Kim was one of her classmates, and Tori brought her along for some liquid caffeine in the student centre as we did every week.  It's a lucky thing we met, too, otherwise my dear friend Seanno might never have met the love of his life!  These two crazy kids are getting hitched next month, and I couldn't be more excited for them.  As a bridesmaid, I've been researching what SHOULD NOT happen at weddings on etiquettehell.com, and I came across a snafu involving hot cake that reminded me of this story.  Just so I don't jinx it, I know that Kim and Sean's wedding cake will turn out wonderfully, much better than the cake in the following tale (well, the point is kind of moot, since they're having stylish individual pétit fours, but nonetheless...)

Okay, now flashback to 2009, June, Kim's birthday celebration.  Fantastic backyard bbq, particularly featuring wonderful grilled Portuguese chouriço (Kim's dad pronounces it like "cherice", and he's the real deal, so I'll stick with that).  Spicy homemade pork sausage flavoured with pimenta, a red pepper paste/sauce/condiment/jar of deliciousness.  I regret leaving my stash at home in Windsor.  Sorry, back on track.  Earlier in the day, Tori and I were out and about shopping for items to bring to the party.  In particular, we wanted to be responsible for the cake... but we couldn't decide if we were going to buy it ready-made or make it.  Eventually, we decided to make it, and purchased a dark chocolate cake mix, vanilla frosting, and a pint each of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries.  This was going to be legendary.  The only issue?  Erm, we had sort of dilly-dallied around, and ended up with very little time to, y'know, actually bake and decorate the cake.  Oops.

Hubs and Honeybee, dilly-dallying.  This is the problem with multiple cameras and a distractable partner.

 The baking went fine... but the cooling was slow going.  Everyone who knows anything about DIY cake knows that you DO NOT ICE A HOT CAKE.  EVER.  Sorry.  That warranted all-caps.  Knowing this, we shoved the cake in the freezer (also a no-no, as this puts stress on the appliance, but what could we do?).  We let it chill until the absolute last possible minute that we could before the party began.  We had a heck of a time keeping Kim out of the kitchen so she wouldn't see a) our decorating job before it was complete, and b) the utter catastrophe our icing job was rapidly becoming.  We had wanted to slice the 13"x9" slab cake in half like a hamburger bun, to put icing and berries between the layers.  Remember: hot cake.  The top layer I carefully sliced off sort of... fell apart in places.  Hmm.  Well, not much to do but carry on.  We added the icing (which melted and sort of gave the cake more moisture... not such a bad deal) and the blueberries.  Then we... attempted to ice the top and sides.

I call this: "Tori's arms and a cake".  Photo courtesy of Seanno.

This is where we ran out of icing trying to cover up all the crumbs and cracks in the cake.  Graham, Tori's ever-patient and supportive cohab, ran to the store to get more icing.  We just slathered it on as best we could, then added a festive (and generous) clustering of berries to try to "disguise" the mangled corners.  Tori had worked in the bakery at Valumart and was occasionally called on to personalize a cake; she did the honors here.  We finally presented the finished product on a white square serving platter (my favourite!) which doubled as a gift for Kim.  WHEW!  Done.  Everyone complimented the dessert, which tasted great... very few people knew of the panicked icing-fetchery and fevered berry-maneuvering.  It was definitely a lesson in time management and baking 101.  In the end, though, a good time was had by all (and Kim's dad's fireworks display was spectacular!!)

It could've been worse.  Oh, I forgot to mention the white chocolate curls on top... that ended up being "shards".  Couldn't quite get them to curl.  Just one more thing on top of it all, literally and figuratively!

Truly a weekend in food to remember, from the archives.

Wondering if she'll bungle up MacGyver her own birthday cake in a similar way this December,
-Honeybee